Anton Kartashev

Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev (Russian: Антон Владимирович Карташёв; 1875–1960) was a Russian journalist and professor of Church History. Briefly in 1917 he was the last Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Governing Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia and Minister of Religion in the Russian Provisional Government; but from 1920 he taught in Paris.

Biography

Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev was born on 11 July1875 in Kishtma in the Ural Mountains, in Russia, the son of a government clerk and former miner. He was educated at a Church school in Ekaterinburg. In 1894 he earned a theological degree from Perm Seminary, and in 1899 from the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy.

From 1900 he was a lecturer in Russian Church History at the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy, but resigned in 1905 and became an assistant librarian at the St Petersburg Imperial Public Library.

From 1906 to 1918 he taught the history of religion at St. Petersburg University College for Women. In 1909 he was chairperson of the Religious Philosophical Society in Petersburg. He also edited the journal "Vestnik Zhizni".

On 25 March 1917 in the aftermath of the February Revolution Kartashev was named assistant to the Ober-procurator of the Holy Governing Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia, Prince Vladimir Lvov; he himself served as Ober-procurator from 25 July to 5 August 1917, when the office was abolished, and he then served as the first Minister of Religion until the October Revolution that year.

In 1918 he was arrested by the Communists. In January 1919 he fled Russia for Finland; and in 1920 settled in Paris.

In Paris he helped found the St. Sergius Theological Institute, and from 1925 was a professor there until his death. In 1959 he published a collection of essays on the history of the Church in Russia; and another book, on the ecumenical councils, was published posthumously in 1965.

He died on September 10, 1960, and is buried in the Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois Russian Cemetery in Paris.